David Ward - Landscape Photography - Into The Light

There is a major theme in photography, one inextricably bound to the process of image formation and, if you know where to look, evident in every image that we make. Light's equal partner in photography is time. As Rebecca Solnit points out in her excellent book Motion Studies time often provides the deepest, frequently unacknowledged, theme of photography.

Time plays its part not only in the making of the image but also frequently serves as its subject: the geological time suggested by an abstract rock study; the historic time alluded to by images of human artifacts; the unacknowledged time present in an image of an autumnal leaf and the obvious time represented by "Golden hour" images of sunrise and set.

Photographs also speak of the time spent by the photographer on his journey to the point at which he made an image, time invested in learning his or her craft and developing their vision.